Cleaning Floors
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: I've done terrible things He'd say sometimes. He cleaned their hospital floors and his nametag said Dan. A mentality unstable man he cleaned the floors. They never knew where he came from or why he never spoke. Daniel Cain after the movies.


"I've done, such terrible things." He'd say time and time again. "Truly terrible. Horrible. I'm disgusting."

He cleaned the halls, and the nurses said he came from a crazy house, across the country. They said he ran away as soon as he got out, ran all the way to them, across an entire country he had run.

"If there's such a thing as evil, I am it." He'd say.

A tall skinny man, he looked so fragile, and so sad. It was obvious if you watched him for a moment that there was something mentally wrong with him. His hands shook, and he scratched his neck with such force it would bleed sometimes, he shook his head, clasped his ears as if he could not stop hearing something, and spoke to himself. Sometimes the speaking would get louder and he'd say things to no one.

"They were so quiet. They were so quiet." He'd say.

But as far as they could tell he wasn't dangerous. He had never harmed anyone, and in fact was very polite to the doctors and nurses. He had a knack for finding things. Once a child had wandered out of his mother's room as she slept and the father had gone to get her flowers. The nurses scrambled for the child, but an hour later they saw him walking the halls with the child, holding his hand, telling stories to the child. Sometimes he'd look at people's charts, but they didn't say anything because he'd always put them back. Sometimes they'd try and talk to him, but he never spoke back, and when he stared at you he didn't seem to be listening.

He was the janitor, he spent all day cleaning up and down the floors, and each floor knew him. He was tall and skinny and mentally ill, he wore a blue jump suit and it showed his name was "Dan."

She had come as an intern a year after he started working. The residents told her to just stay away from him, don't talk to him, don't get him excited and he'll be just fine. The poor guy, they'd say, we don't want to have to fire him, it's best we keep to ourselves to keep him. She had mentioned in passing that she could not find any extra scrubs and an hour later he had found some for her, they were a bit big but she was thankful all the same. She tried to say something to him but he turned and left without saying a word.

They said he'd come from a crazy house across the country, he had been there since he was a kid her age maybe a little older, late twenties at most. It didn't make any sense to her, watching him, a man now into his forties. People her age, young men and women, they should be emerging as adults, getting careers, leaving the nest, meeting new people. They shouldn't be in mental hospitals, going crazy. She'd watch him from across the hall on the moments when she had nothing to do. She'd watch him mumble to himself and she wondered what had happened when he was like her. What had happened to make him into this?

His name was Daniel Cain they'd say to her, the poor guy's crazy, but he's too sweet, we can't let him go. He probably doesn't have any family, any friends.

She once got brave enough to stand next to him as he wiped some blood away from the floor.

"I'd be all right." He said. "If they weren't so quiet."

"What?" She asked.

He looked up, fearful, as if he did not know he had spoken aloud. He stared at her with such shock and dismay he looked away, and put his hand to his face and scratched until his face bled. She tried to stop him but he crawled away, and they told her to get away from him and let him be.

Dr. Combs, the mortician, said he slept in the morgue on the floor. 

"Don't you have a home?" Dr. Combs had asked.

"Y – yes."

"Then why do you want to sleep here?"

"P-please, I can't go back, I can't, don't make me, p-please."

That was the most he's said to anyone. Dr. Combs said he had tried to bring out more but Daniel Cain would not speak. So every night the man comes down and sleeps in the morgue, on the floor with a blanket they had given him. Daniel Cain, he stirred up the worst pity in people, such a guilt that they could not help but let the man sleep in the morgue. It'd be cruel to do otherwise they felt.

He did no harm, that was the thing. You take an oath as a doctor, "Do No Harm," and that's what he did. He never hurt anyone or showed an intent to so they let him. Their Daniel Cain, the janitor who slept in the morgue.

Even so you'd see him up and about even late at night. Dr. Combs said he screamed sometimes, night terrors, the worst kind. He never said anything of significance, the poor man just screamed in his sleep. And so the skinny thing he was, walked around the hospital like a skeleton, bags under his eyes just unable to sleep. He left rarely, where he went no one knew, his lack of presence was noticeable, but he'd always come back and he'd just appear as if he had never gone anywhere.

One time she had watched him, he had cut himself on a scalpel opening a door into a doctor. She ran over to him and grabbed his bloody hand. He was screaming, not from pain, but fear, he was afraid of the blood.

"Quiet!" She told him. "Please, sh, please be quiet!"

He screamed and she took him into a small room where she could take a look. He was still screaming, unable to look at the blood, but he was so fragile even her strength could overpower him.

"Please!" She tried. "You're all right! You're all right!"

She washed away the blood and he calmed down. He took in deep breaths, and sniffed his nose which was red and his eyes were at the point of tears. The room was dark and she put his hand under the one lamp. She had wiped away the blood to show the cut wasn't that big at all.

"See?" She said. "You're fine. Hands – they bleed a lot, but it's nothing."

"I – I know." He said.

She looked up, surprised that he had spoken. He was staring at his hand now with shame. He seemed disappointed that he had been so afraid, he stared at his hand, almost wishing his injury was greater to justify his terror. She took some antibacterial and bandages and patched him up. She put her hand to his cheek.

"You're okay right?" She asked.

She grabbed her hand with a strength she didn't know such a skinny man could have. It made her jump, but he pushed her hand into his face and seemed to smell her wrist. He closed his eyes and seemed enthralled in a memory. She became suddenly afraid, a crazy man who had probably not been touched by a woman in all these years. She was terrified and ready to scream, but then he let her go and seemed shamed again as he turned away.

"You remind me of Meg." He said, the clearest sentence anyone had heard him speak.

"Meg?" She asked.

He nodded.

"Who's Meg?" She asked.

"She's dead."

With that he turned away from her, and walked out to his mop, and he began to clean up his blood off the floor.

His name was Daniel Cain, he was their janitor. And now apparently he had known someone named Meg, but now she was dead. She told the others, and they thought, the poor man, do you think he killed her? No, she must've been killed, been killed, they wouldn't let a crazy murderer out would they? Who could have killed her?

They didn't know that he listened to them. They didn't know that he heard every little speculation they made about him, they didn't know what they were asking. They didn't know, they could never know.

"I've done terrible things." He'd say to them, and some heard if they'd listen.

He hoped they would just so they'd stop speculating.

"They were so quiet." He'd say. "The Dead are so quiet."

She became a resident soon enough and felt no need to go to a new hospital, she had friends there, and there would have been no Dan Cain. One time she was treating to a terminal patient, with cancer riddled throughout her body. The patient was going to die, but until then they kept her comfortable on the best drugs her insurance could afford. She had no family, despite being young, her brothers and parents had died in the same car crash a long time ago she said to them, she had broken up with her boyfriend when she found out she had cancer, she didn't tell him. She loved him and would have married him if only.

You could see her going each day, closer and closer to death you could see it taking her. Each day there'd be a little less life in her, and she looked like the next nap she'd take she'd never come out of it.

Daniel Cain cleaned the floors of her room one day.

"Are – Are – Are you all right?" He asked her.

"I'm going to die." She said.

"Why?"

"Cancer."

"I don't want you to die." He said with such conviction.

"It's okay, you have to accept these things."

"Yes! YES." He nodded. "We must accept death."

"Heh, yeah."

"But I don't want you to." He nodded at her.

"It's okay, I have no one. No one will miss me."

"I will miss you."

"You don't even know me."

"But you're dying, people shouldn't die."

He had stayed with her for the rest of the day, talking apparently, about what no one knew, since they spoke only to each other. He had held her hand as she died, and when they heard they came in to see him sitting in a chair next to her bed, crying.

They didn't know that he had told her the story of his life.

"I'd be all right, if they weren't so quiet." He told her at the end of the story. "I swear, I'd be all right, and my friend would still be alive."

"If it means anything to you, I don't think you're terrible."

"It does. But…I've done terrible things."

She told him to forgive himself and then she died.

He went and cleaned the halls when they took her away.

She watched him clean the halls, and she wondered about him, his name seemed familiar after a while. She looked him up online and found that he was once Dr. Daniel Cain in Massachusetts. She read about the Miskatonic Massacre of which he was found to be one of only two survivors, him a that of a Dr. Herbert West, who he himself seemed sketchy. Look at this, she said to her friends. There were several articles about the Massacre, where dead bodies were found mortifed and disfigured and gutted and in several pieces. Look at this. There on the cover was a picture of a younger Daniel Cain and his friend Herbert West. He was there, she told them, that's him right there, look at that face, that's him.

He seemed so much healthier in the picture. Not only youthful, but his face was full, his eyes were alive. They stared through the print, and you could almost feel what he had seen in the massacre, you could see the pain, the loss.

That had to be it, they said, that's what made him go crazy.

"West…"

They all turned around to see him standing there, staring through them at the picture on the computer screen. He stood with an emotionless face, blank eyes that looked almost dead. Horror and age stretched over his face in wrinkles and scares, and the eyes went red, and he just stared.

They didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to say as he stood there or as he pushed through them and leaned down to the screen, and touched the face of his friend.

He stood then and looked as though he were about to cry but he began walking away.

"I held her. I held her." He said. "I held her in my arms, but she wasn't Meg."

He grabbed his mop and cart and began down the hall.

"He promised me, he promised it'd be her. He promised."

She tried to speak to him after that, apologize for stirring up bad memories, but he ignored her, and acted as if she wasn't even there.

One day a bus had crashed and a lot of dying people were coming into the ER. There was a lot of blood to clean up and he was there, unfazed by the choas around him, the loud screaming of patients, the mad rush of doctors, the sound of ambulances and helicopters, and people running in asking if their relative was still alive. He walked the halls, detached from it all, not even acknowledging it, and he cleaned the halls.

He made his way into a room where a man was dying. People were helping him but then children were in, from the back of the bus, their legs mangled. The others ran for the youths, and left the poor dying man, with only Daniel there.

The man breathed in deep breaths, he was going into shock.

"Help me…" The man cried out.

Daniel stared, detached.

"Help me!"

The man grabbed at Daniel's arm and there was blood everywhere.

They had forgotten about him, tending to the others. No one was at fault, it was a disaster, people were dying just waiting to get in, it was horrible. They had forgotten about him, but then a woman from the waiting room screamed. Daniel was crying.

He stumbled across the hallways, his hands with gloves on, his chest and hands completely covered in blood. He was crying and a woman screamed at him. She came running first and grabbed Daniel and put him to the floor.

"Daniel!" She screamed. "What's wrong, what happened, what did you do!?"

Daniel could not form words but his blood hands pointed at the room he had emerged from.

The doctors ran in with the worst of fears. That their Daniel had killed a man, that he'd have to be taken away, that they were wrong all this time, or that they had provoked him to this level. But when they went in they found a steady heart rate, a man on a breathing machine, his chest had been opened and sewn shut. The man, he was still alive.

She ran out of the room and went to Daniel in the hallway where he still sat and cried. He put his bloody hands to his ears, not wanting to hear anything. But she grabbed his hands and forced him to look at her.

"Dan. Dan!" She yelled. "You saved him! He's alive, he's all right! You did it!"

But he was crying.

"Dr. Cain!" She screamed.

And suddenly he became silent, and his tears stopped. He sniffed his nose and tore off his blood gloves and wiped his face with his clean hands, wiping away his tears.

"You saved him." She said again.

"…He had shrapnel in his heart, he had pieces in his heart, his heart, in his heart." Daniel said.

He looked at her and showed her his shaking hands.

"I was going to be a surgeon, but my hands shook too much." He told her. "I was going to save lives. I was going to save lives, save lives, but my hands shook too much."

He began to tear up again and she grabbed his hands to steady them and wrapped her arms around his neck and laid his head on her chest. He began to cry again and in all that chaos they remained there on the bloody floor. He cried and cried and she shook him and they remained there on the bloody floor.

The man Daniel Cain saved was all right, and checked out a week later.

He followed her around more often now. It seemed he was not unaware to the fact that she had held me that day. He followed her around and seemed to help her. He still cleaned the floors so no one said anything. Slowly he began to speak more and more.

"My friend." He'd say.

"Herbert West?" She ask.

"Yes, Herbert, my friend, he was brilliant. I was his only friend. We lived together."

"What happened to him?"

"The Dead got him." He'd say. "They were so quiet."

She didn't understand what that meant, but she allowed him to speak just so he'd speak.

"They weren't usually quiet, that's the thing. They screamed because, he said, because birth always hurts. But they were quiet, these ones, they were so quiet." He said.

"What about Meg?"

"Meg's dead."

"What happened?"

"She's dead. You can't bring her back, she's dead."

One day though, a quiet man walked into the hallways. He held a small smile and content eyes. He carried himself lightly, and made no footsteps as he walked. Spectacles framed his eyes and boyish face. He looked old and young at the same time. He looked familiar, but he had a generic face that always looked familiar. He was so silent as he walked in and came to one of the nurses where she was. He seemed to have wisdom and age in his eyes that should not have been there, as if he had stolen it. But he smiled so slightly when he spoke.

"Excuse me." He said. "I'm looking for a Dr. Cain? Dr. Daniel Cain?"

The nurses looked at each other. Daniel turned the corner and saw the young man standing before the nurses. He froze in his place, and the man turned to him and started for him. Daniel ran up and grabbed him and locked them in a room that happened to be empty.

"Daniel?" The man asked. "Daniel is that you? Look at you, you're old."

Daniel said nothing and merely stared.

"And you're a janitor? Dan, what's the matter with you, you should be saving lives."

Daniel grabbed the young man by the neck and pushed him into the wall.

"I should kill you!" Daniel yelled. "Herbert West, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead! You went to jail, and you died in there!"

"I never died you fool!" Herbert was grabbing at Daniel's hands. "Look at me, Dan, look at me, I got out!"

Daniel's grip began to loosen.

"Let me go, Dan!" Herbert West yelled.

"We've done terrible things. If there's such a thing as evil, we are it." Daniel shook his head and pushed Herbert back into the wall. "What we've done, what we've done…"

Herbert West began to see the condition of his friend. He was shocked by the mere appearance of his friend who had felt the years that had past, but now he saw that his mental stability was terrible. Herbert West felt something similar to guilt, but he wouldn't have called it that. There was a duty he felt with Daniel, who was his most loyal of assistants despite Daniel turning him in eventually.

"The dead took you away, Herbert, and the police shot them, and you went to jail! You should have died there!" Daniel was screaming. "Why didn't you die!?"

"You bastard! How dare you say that to me!?" Herbert was screaming.

"We should both be dead!"

Herbert West grabbed a scalpel and put it to Daniel's neck.

"Dan, let me go." And Dan did, backing away. "I got out, Dan. I got out and I need an assistant."

"No."

"Dan, we can do it now, despite incarceration I have made some interesting developments…"

"No."

"We can do it, Dan, we could do it, I'm so close."

"NO!"

Herbert's eyes widened in surprise. And Daniel stood, not even looking at him.

"I won't go with you." Daniel said. "I won't do it again."

"Dan, I don't care that you turned me in, I want to do this with you." Herbert said, revealing a vulnerable side that Daniel had never seen, it was a plea, one last try to get Daniel to go with him.

"No. I can't. I won't." Daniel shook his head.

"Dan…"

"NO! Herbert, I won't do it! Don't you think you've done enough to me!?"

Herbert backed away, and put the scalpel down.

"Just, go, Herbert. Leave me here, I'm happy here."

"You're a janitor."

"I'm happy here. Let me stay and let me die here, don't come looking for my body, don't even touch it. Let me die here, Herbert, let me die happy."

Herbert West walked up to Daniel, who still didn't look at him. Herbert West lowered his head to meet Daniel's eyes and he took one long look.

"Hm." Herbert West said as he opened the door and walked out.

She came to Daniel when he left, still standing in that room, unmoved until Herbert West was gone.

"That man, he looked like…" She said.

"My friend is dead." Daniel said. "He just doesn't know it yet."

She didn't know what to say or what to do, but he walked up to her and hugged her, he held her tightly even if she stood unmoving. He gripped her and smelled her hair and gently backed away.

Then he walked out and cleaned the floors.


End file.
